Friday, March 5, 2010

Continuing from our last post. We are discussing the very first fertility goddess; Inanna. She was the sex, fertility and goddess of war to the Sumerians in Mesopotamia. We discussed in the last post the Sumerian creation myth that there were six people created in the beginning. Four of whom were androgynous and the other two a barren female and a castrated male eunuch. So we can see the death wish that the devil had for both Adam and Eve. He was furious that Adam and Eve had the capability to produce life.

We also discussed the myth of Inanna and the Huluppu Tree. This was a tree that the god of wisdom had planted and that Inanna took and planted in her own sacred garden. She makes a throne in her tree, to rule. She makes a bed in her tree to reproduce. Later the serpent, the Anzu bird and the Lilitu all make a nest in her tree. We see later that these three beings were all aspects of Inanna's personality.

So this gives great insight as to the enemies side of the story. As I have discussed in other posts, I do not believe that God put the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil {or function and dysfunction, in the Hebrew} in the garden. It was God's Tree of Life that was in the midst of the garden, the other tree was a tree that the devil had made his nest in. To make his throne and his bed as the myth points out. The Devil wanted to be ruler of the earth and he also wanted rule over the seed of the woman. So he tempts the bearer of the seed; Eve. More on this in a bit. First lets discuss 'Inanna and the Mes'.

According to the Sumerian myth, once Inanna made her throne out of the Huluppu Tree she decided she would need more power than what Enki{the god of wisdom} had given her. Enki was the keeper of the Mes or Me. The Me was the wisdom of civilization. It was the code of how the spirit world and the physical world interacted. So one day Inanna goes to Enki and asks for a larger allocation of the Me; since it was handed out among all the other gods each with their own sphere of influence. Enki denies his daughter Inanna her request and Inanna is not happy. So she gets him drunk. Then in his drunkenness he hands over ALL the Me to Inanna. Inanna flees quickly in her boat up the Euphrates.

When Enki comes to and realizes that he has been tricked, he is furious. So he sends out demonic creatures of all kinds to retrieve the Me. But Inanna's trusty female companion Ninshubur fights off all the demons. So what do you think was the prize of all the Me to Inanna? Choice!

"Of all the Me Inanna received, the one she valued most, as did Enki, was the power of making decisions. Knowing the other gifts would be worthless without this power -- which involves will, initiative, and independence." from Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth by Eloise Hart

So a background picture should be forming in your mind as to what was behind the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Isn't interesting to see how the Devil made myths to show himself the good guy in all this? Or actually good gal! LOL. Seriously though. The devil knew he could tempt Eve because he knew she had the freedom of choice. That is why he set up shop in the garden. He wanted Adam and Eve to worship him in place of God. He wanted Adam and Eve to think that he was the one that would make them 'fruitful and multiply'. He wanted Adam and Eve to think he was the one with all the wisdom. But as we know it was a lie. Adam and Eve gained no good knowledge from the tree, they only gained the death of the devil. There is another eerie parallel and that is Inanna's decent to the underworld.

It is still unclear to me as to why Inanna decides to go to the underworld. However her sister Eriskegal is the goddess of the underworld and the dead. As Inanna descends she passes through seven different gates guarded by demons. At each gate she is required to remove a piece of clothing or earthly attribute including her priestly office, her sexual power and her royal power. By the time she gets to the underworld she is naked before her sister the goddess of the dead."Naked and bowed low, Inanna entered the throne room.Ereshkigal rose from her throne.Inanna started toward the throne.The Annuna, the judges of the underworld, surrounded her.They passed judgment against her.Then Ereshkigal fastened on Inanna the eye of death.She spoke against her the word of wrath.She uttered against her the cry of guilt.She struck her.Inanna was turned into a corpse,A piece of rotting meat,And was hung from a hook on the wall...."www.inanna.virtualave.net/tammuz.htmlSo here we really have the culmination of what took place in the garden. The Devil as Inanna has built his throne in the garden. He thinks he has outwitted God by using his choice to make his throne in the garden. The devil thinks that he can 'get' Adam and Eve by offering 'his' wisdom. But what he really wants is the seed of man, that is born of the woman. So the temptation of Eve was that she would 'be like God' or in this case be a goddess. This temptation goes against what God had already put in place by His truth.

Man and woman were created male and female, separate but equal. They were to take dominion over the earth together. They were to be fruitful and multiply together. They were to be in intimate relationship with God and in an intimate marital relationship together. But the Devil doesn't like that idea. So he seeks to destroy. But the trick offered to Eve was that she didn't need Adam as an intimate husband to co-rule with. The way of the goddess is to rule over man and use him only as a fertilizer. So Eve fell for it and Adam stood there like a future male fertility prostitute; succumbed to the way of the goddess and ate the lie as well. Then the lie was revealed.

They stood there naked and laid bare just like Inanna before the queen of the underworld. And part of the death was to their sexuality. Remember the Sumerian creation story? A barren woman and a male eunuch. That was how Adam and Eve stood. The Devil had made that which was male and female, married, intimate and able to produce life---androgynous, unequal, ritual and dead. Women are reminded of the death every month! That is what menstruation is; death of a potential life. This was part of the consequence for Eve's choice. Pain in conception and childbirth because of the 'death' caused by the Devil. This wasn't Gods plan. Sin is the punishment. Sin is causing the will of the Devil to take place. Moreover what the Devil accomplished is the unequal state between a man and a woman. Again not God, remember he has given them equal dominion, they were to be co-rulers. So God's response to this now unequal relationship is...Eve desire your husband{not the schemes of the enemy} and Adam take care of your wife! In other words look out for one another and be aware of the destructive plans of the enemy.So in a way we can look at what happened in the garden as a victory. Or at the very least God working a seemingly hopeless situation for good. Adam and Eve repented. Adam and Eve were covered by God in skins of atonement. The next we hear of the couple it is that Adam knew his wife in the intimate, marital, sexual union. Eve conceives life by her husband and gives birth to life in her son Cain. Eve exclaims "With the help of the Lord I have brought forth the life of a man." {Gen 4:1} Proclaiming the life of God's truth and at the same time discounting the lie that the enemy had told.

So the Devil creates his own story. He dreams up the goddess Inanna as the one he wished Eve had become so that he would have held the power to use her to his evil purpose. In a weird way it almost seems that the Devil himself takes on the personae of the goddess. It's like the fireman who is an arsonist by night. He lights the fires of destruction in the shadows then by day shows up as the hero who saves everyone. That is the narcissistic character of the enemy. You will see as we follow the other fertility goddesses through ancient times that the are the ones who claim fertility but always have a dark side of war and death. It was the devil that gave birth to misogyny, but he covered his evil intentions in a the form of a goddess so that he might cause the most damage against her.

Next we willlook at the transformation of the Sumerian Inanna into the Babylonian Ishtar. We will also be discussing where the female aspect fits into a patriarchal God.

I needed this. God has spoken through your words. I have been lost and tricked my the devil like Eve. Yours words have brought forth the truth of Gods light and motherhood. Gods will brings forth peace and grace. The devil is no longer welcomed in heaven. Inanna rejoices.

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My personal thoughts and insights on spirituality and faith. My aim is to help people navigate this post-modern world of religion, sex and pop culture with their integrity, identity and faith intact. This is NOT a blog about correct theology, dogma and apologetics. I am from a non-denominational background raised on the mission fields of the Pacific and Asia. I don't label myself Arminian, certainly not Calvinist, not Reformed or Emergent. I do however love Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior. I also love studying His Word. My aim is to speak biblical based, Christ-centered truth here and encourage people to seek out their own answers. My hope is that people will think differently about Christianity; at the very least ask some questions. Getting out of the box, doing away with fear and confusion but staying grounded in the Word which is truth and love. So these are a collection of things that I have learned over the years, things I am still learning, and things that I hope to learn more about. I don't think anyone ever has all the answers but I hope I have found some. I still have a lot of questions too. "But by the grace of God I am what I am..."
1 Cor. 15:10

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